Conferences suggest playoff pickers

Thursday

The conference commissioners who put together the College Football Playoff will not be allowed to serve on the committee that selects the teams that will play in it.

The commissioners are still working on the structure of the selection committee for the new postseason system that starts in 2014. But they have eliminated themselves from consideration.

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who once served on the basketball selection committee, said yesterday he thought commissioners recusing themselves was the right way to go.

"I really believe there are some people with a high level of expertise that would be helpful to the process, a high level of experience that would be helpful to the process," Bowlsby said at the Big 12 meetings in the Dallas area. "But we felt like it was just going to be too disruptive and too subject to suspicion and therefore decided that we wouldn't be in the room."

BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock told reporters at the Southeastern Conference spring meetings in Destin, Fla., that the commissioners are not eliminating the possibility that active athletic directors could serve on the committee, but the focus has been on using former administrators, coaches and even media members to make up the panel.

Hancock says the commissioners would like the committee to have geographic balance.

"Conferences have been invited to submit names," he said, "probably about 20."

PATERNO FAMILY WILL SUE NCAA: A lawsuit planned by the family of late Penn State Coach Joe Paterno, former players and others connected to the school seeks to overturn the NCAA's swift and strict sanctions against the football program for the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

The 40-page suit to be filed today will name as defendants the NCAA and its president, Mark Emmert, and Oregon State President Edward Ray, who was chair of the NCAA's executive committee, according to a statement released by attorney Wick Sollers and other family representatives late last night.

The planned litigation also seeks to shine a light on the withering report prepared by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whom the university tapped to lead an investigation into the scandal, and calls into question how and why the NCAA used the report as a basis for its sanctions in July, according to Sollers.

GEORGIA SAFETY SUSPENDED: Georgia officials say sophomore safety Josh Harvey-Clemons has been suspended for the Bulldogs' season-opening game at Clemson.

Harvey-Clemons was suspended for an undisclosed violation of team rules, Georgia spokesman Claude Felton said yesterday. Harvey-Clemons was not arrested, but no further details were released.

Harvey-Clemons, a projected starter, appeared in 14 games as a freshman in 2012. He had 14 tackles and broke up one pass.

KU LINEMAN ARRESTED: Kansas defensive lineman Chris Martin has been arrested on robbery charges. Jayhawks Coach Charlie Weis said in a statement released last night that the school is aware of the charges and gathering facts.

KUSports.com reported that Lawrence Police arrested Martin yesterday along with former Kansas player Jeremiah Letrell Edwards and Joshua Edwards in connection with an armed robbery on May 13.

Martin, who went to high school in Aurora, Colo., is charged with aggravated robbery, conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery and kidnapping. Martin is a junior college transfer who was preparing for his first season at Kansas.

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